Nearby Issues

5 Comments

Beeg(Guest)

The trash cans put out by the city, similar to the can at 7th and Federal are being used by the residents on the block. As soon as that can is empited it is filled with trash from the residents.

I think it may be better to put a lid on the trashcan, chain it down with only a small opening so only small items of trash can be tossed in the can. If they could they would drop a counch or a mattress in it....

I manage the trash can at 8th and Federal - I just put one out there, chained the lid down, put a hole in the lid and for the most part keep out the neighbors trash. Some of the residents on 8th street put garbage bags next to the trashcan on off trash days, and I just throw the bags back on their doorstep,....they put it back on the trashcan...it goes back on their doorstep...it's an ongoing battle.

I thought the city might come by and cut the trashcan off, but it has been there for 2 years now and hasn't been removed.

I think it would be great if at least one resident on every block personally invested in a trash can and chained to a pole on the corner...especially at bus stops. PSCA offered to reimburse me for the trashcan, but I denied it...it doesn't cost much money..maybe 20 bucks a year and some time. Every trash day I go out and change out the bag.

I think it make s a big difference...overall, despite some of the abuses (I had a neighbor shoving construction debris in one time) it seems to work out.

Thanks for point out this issue. One point of clarification. The wire basket trash cans placed around the neighborhood were made available through a partnership between the Passyunk Square Civic Association and the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation (PARC) - not the city. PARC has agreed to empty the cans every work day in the course of their other street cleaning activities. Without that arrangement, these cans would be impossible to maintain and service and would not have been placed. These cans were placed in high traffic areas near bus stops and other places to give people a place to discard common litter items like plastic bottles, candy wrappers, chip bags, cheesesteak wrappers, napkins, discarded lottery tickets, etc.

Unfortunately, commenter Beeg is correct. Too many people are using too many of the cans for their household trash, often bagged up in loosely tied plastic shopping bag which quickly fill the cans. The result, as you can probably see today, is that after just two days without a pick-up (weekends) and especially after three such days (like this weekend with a holiday on Monday) the overflow. We assure you, though, that they are scheduled to be emptied every non-holiday weekday.

The Passyunk Square Civic Association has been dealing with this as it comes up and has responded to specific neighbor requests to remove cans from certain locations and redeploy them to others where they would more likely be used for litter rather than household trash. We're also considering several options for securing the cans to make them less easily used for large trash (similar to Beeg's suggestion).

For the most part we've gotten good feedback that the cans have cut down on street litter. If we can get control of the household dumping issue - with a different design, enforcement or continued outreach to people who might not realize that it's inappropriate to use the cans for this purpose - we'll have a pretty good asset for the neighborhood.

Until then, please continue to report cases of overflowing cans so we can get that to PARC. (They'll be out there again tomorrow... emptying the cans.) Thanks!